If We're Not Together
by laurenwrites
Summary: Jade shifts her bag uncomfortably on her shoulder. "He hasn't texted me, and he always texts me in the morning if we're not waking up together." / In which Beck is missing from school. Bade.


**I had Bade feels in class and then this happened. I don't know what this is. Review if you wish? **

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When Jade checks her phone for the fourth time in the same minute, she finds a still message-less screen and slams her locker shut.

"Andre," she barks, strutting quickly towards the boy's locker as another clap of thunder shakes the sky.

He winces at the sound of her voice before immediately turning to face her. "I didn't do anything!" He cries, wishing he were able to keep more of his dignity in front of the hottest girl at their school.

She ignores him. "Have you talked to Beck today?"

"Uh," he stammers, "no, why?"

Jade rolls her eyes, but Andre swears he sees more of a worried expression than a frustrated one painted on her face. Before he gets the chance to ask, though, she's off to Tori.

The brunette is laughing with Cat about something when Jade cuts them off with her question. "Neither one of you has spoken with Beck this morning, correct?"

The girls shake their heads. "Why?" Cat asks, her small voice almost drowned out by the sounds of the booming rain outside.

Jade shifts her bag uncomfortably on her shoulder. "He hasn't texted me, and he _always_ texts me in the morning if we're not waking up together."

"Okay," Tori reasons, "maybe he overslept?"

"He doesn't do that. Beck is the most time-conscious, punctual person in the world. The only thing he'll be late to school for is when we want to have morning s—"

"I think I get it," she cuts the rambling girl off.

"Maybe he just decided not to get out of bed! My brother sometimes lays in bed all day," the redhead offers, an innocent smile still on her face.

"And," Tori adds, "the weather's gross. Maybe he just decided to skip school."

"No," Jade rejects again, beginning to feel the nausea rise in her stomach. "Rain is his…_our_ favorite weather. If he wanted to skip, he would have called me to come over."

"Well what if this time he—"

"Just forget it," she snaps, spinning around to leave the girls standing there.

Jade doesn't pay attention for a minute of first period; she's completely tuned out. Half of her is sure he'd gotten into an accident in the rain and is dead somewhere on the side of the road. The thought makes her want to vomit, but not as much as the idea of him not caring enough to text her a reason for his tardiness.

Does he regret getting back together with her?

Does he think texting her each morning is annoying?

Is he over always wanting to spend rainy days with her?

Is there someone else he'd rather be with?

The questions of insecurity flitter through her mind all morning, haunting her into a daze. By fourth period she's in Sikowitz's class, and her friends (and the teacher himself) are positive she's going to be sick. Her face is paler than usual—it looks ghostly—and her stomach twists into a tighter knot with every minute that passes by.

"Jade," Robbie is the first to speak anything of the matter, "do you…feel okay? You don't look too good."

Had she snarled something back at him, maybe they wouldn't be so nervous. It's what she _doesn't_ do, though, that allows them to understand just how shaken up she is. She faces forward, her eyes iced over and arms folded across her chest. She doesn't flinch at the sound of her name; she doesn't have any reaction at all.

"Jade," Sikowitz tests, running a hand in front of her face. "Are you alright? Do you need to visit the nurse?"

When she doesn't respond, the teacher repeats her name again before Jade abruptly stands up and whips around to walk out of the classroom. The hallways are clear as she bolts directly to the bathroom, locking herself inside a stall so she can breathe. She checks her phone for the millionth time to still see no text from her boyfriend, and she's about to burst into tears when the school bell sounds off and the shuffling begins.

Jade quickly grabs her bag off the floor and exits the stall, making her way out of the bathroom and into the janitor's closet. While she hopelessly slumps to the floor, her friends are proceeding out of their class and have no idea where she'd gone to.

"I gotta admit," Andre says as the group heads to the cafeteria, which is only used for eating when the weather is poor, "I am kinda worried about where Beck is. I texted him and he hasn't responded...and the weather's really bad."

There's a nervous silence before, "Don't let your mind go there." Tori sighs, her eyebrows patching together. "I'm sure he's okay. He…has to be, right?"

"I think," Cat pipes in, "that maybe he—Oh! Beck!"

At the sound of her word, the other four juniors turn to face the direction in which the redhead is looking.

"Beck!" They begin to shout simultaneously to the boy approaching their table.

"Hey, guys," he responds, taking a glance around the table. He wants to ask why they're all so eager to see him, but there's something else on his mind. "Where's Jade?"

There's an awkward silence, further confusing Beck, until Cat's quiet voice comes in. "She left in the middle of Sikowitz's class. We don't know where she went."

"She was sorta crazy all day," Andre informs him. "You didn't text her—or any of us—where you were, and she seemed sorta pissed... Where _have_ you been?"

"My truck wouldn't start this morning, so I had to call my dad at work and ask him to give me a ride to school—which he couldn't do until noon. And I dropped my phone in my bathroom when I was getting ready, so my screen is all wonky and none of my texts will go through."

"Well," Tori stammers, "you might wanna go find Jade... I don't think she's doing too well."

Beck immediately gets the concerned look back on his face as he thanks his friends and hurries out of the cafeteria. He's sure he knows where she is, and he only hopes she's not too angry with him. It was only a few hours; surely she can't be _that_ upset with him.

When Beck opens the door to the janitor's closet, he sees his girlfriend sitting Indian-style on the floor. Her head, which is currently being cradled in her hands, pops up as soon as she hears someone enter. Jade freezes, her eyes locking on his brown ones. She rises on impulse, keeping her glare hard despite how relieved she is to see him.

"Where have you been?" Her voice is cold, and he can tell from the tiny of red in her nose that she's been crying.

"Jade, I'm sorry, I—"

"Where," she interrupts him, "have you been?"

"My truck wouldn't start," he quickly explains. "I had to—"

"And you didn't think to call or text me?" She retorts sharply.

"My phone broke this morning and—"

"You have a landline in your house. You couldn't have called me from it?"

"Jade, I said I was sorry. It was a few hours; I didn't think you'd be mad."

"You didn't think I'd be mad? Beck, we've texted every morning since we were fourteen—"

"And this is one time that I screwed up!" He defends. "I think you're overreacting; you have no right to be angry with m—"

"_No right_?" She repeats incredulously, her heart beating faster in her chest. "I thought you were lying in a ditch somewhere, Beck! There's a huge storm out and you weren't texting me back and I didn't know what to think!"

Beck is about to make another argument, but he sees the tears he knows she can't stand beginning to well up in her eyes and he hates himself.

"I wasn't _angry_, Beck! I was worried sick," she confesses through a choke. "I thought something had happened to you! I can't eat, I can't think straight, I can barely _breathe_—dammit—when I don't know that you're okay!" She thinks maybe she'll later regret spilling all of the contents of her mind to him, but the words are pouring out faster than she can stop them.

"Jade," he sighs, stepping towards her as another bolt of thunder strikes the sky, "I'm so sorry. I hadn't thought about it like that. I know I would have been losing my mind if the roles were reversed…"

She brushes the single tear that's falling from her eye as Beck again moves in closer. This time, he pulls her smaller body into his and wraps his arms around her. "I'm sorry, Baby. It won't happen again," he promises. He kisses the top of her hair as she nuzzles her head into his neck. "I love you," Beck reminds her, rubbing her back soothingly.

She's clinging tightly to him, desperately reminding herself that he's alright. "I love you," she whispers back a few moments later, her voice still muffled.

"I'm sorry," he repeats. "I never wanted you to feel like I didn't care enough to text you. You're the most important person in my world, you know that."

It's quiet for another several minutes while he holds her in his arms. When he pulls back just slightly, he leans in to kiss her passionately on the lips.

"Just know," Jade cuts in, "that if you ever do that to me again, you'd _better_ be lying in a ditch."

Beck grins and kisses her again. "Deal. How about I make it up to you tonight?"

Jade turns her head to glance at the clock on the wall of the closet. "Or…" she lingers, a mischievous smile appearing on her face. "We still have twenty minutes of lunch… You could make it up to me now."

He laughs and, after closing and locking the door behind him, picks her up so that her legs are straddling his waist. "This is for what we didn't get to do this morning."

They end up taking longer than twenty minutes and missing their next class, but hey, who's counting?


End file.
